May 2007

May 17, 2007

Thanks to Mark B. for this article. I am working on a special issue focused on bottled water with lots of articles and links. Stay tuned -

A type of chromium highlighted in the film "Erin Brockovich" causes cancer in lab animals when they drink it in water, and it could be harmful to people, the U.S. National Institutes of Health said on Wednesday.

Hexavalent chromium, also called chromium 6, already has been shown to cause lung cancer when inhaled and is controlled by the Environmental Protection Agency as well as by states.

It is best known as the contaminant exposed by campaigner Erin Brockovich, whose battle against a polluter was dramatized in the May 2000 movie of the same name.

May 16, 2007

Here is a good report from the Natural Resources Defense Council on bottled water!

Sales of bottled water in this country have exploded in recent years, largely as a result of a public perception of purity driven by advertisements and packaging labels featuring pristine glaciers and crystal-clear mountain springs. But bottled water sold in the United States is not necessarily cleaner or safer than most tap water, according to a four-year scientific study recently made public by NRDC.

NRDC's study included testing of more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. While most of the tested waters were found to be of high quality, some brands were contaminated: about one-third of the waters tested contained levels of contamination -- including synthetic organic chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic -- in at least one sample that exceeded allowable limits under either state or bottled water industry standards or guidelines.

A key NRDC finding is that bottled water regulations are inadequate to assure consumers of either purity or safety, although both the federal government and the states have bottled water safety programs. At the national level, the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for bottled water safety, but the FDA's rules completely exempt waters that are packaged and sold within the same state, which account for between 60 and 70 percent of all bottled water sold in the United States (roughly one out of five states don't regulate these waters either). The FDA also exempts carbonated water and seltzer, and fewer than half of the states require carbonated waters to meet their own bottled water standards.

Even when bottled waters are covered by the FDA's rules, they are subject to less rigorous testing and purity standards than those which apply to city tap water (see chart below). For example, bottled water is required to be tested less frequently than city tap water for bacteria and chemical contaminants. In addition, bottled water rules allow for some contamination by E. coli or fecal coliform (which indicate possible contamination with fecal matter), contrary to tap water rules, which prohibit any confirmed contamination with these bacteria. Similarly, there are no requirements for bottled water to be disinfected or tested for parasites such as cryptosporidium or giardia, unlike the rules for big city tap water systems that use surface water sources. This leaves open the possibility that some bottled water may present a health threat to people with weakened immune systems, such as the frail elderly, some infants, transplant or cancer patients, or people with HIV/AIDS…

In fact, about one-fourth of bottled water is actually bottled tap water, according to government and industry estimates (some estimates go as high as 40 percent).

So, what's the alternative to bottled water? See Alternatives to Bottled Water and Product Recommendations.

Millions of consumers who recycle every day think that because they recycle their bottles and cans, everyone else is recycling too. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Americans waste (landfill, incinerate, or litter) twice as many beverage containers as we recycle.

In 2006, more than 138 billion beverage bottles and cans were not recycled. Nationwide, that’s about 460 per capita— up from 300 per capita just a decade ago, and this trend of increased wasting is expected to continue.

There is a great environmental cost to replacing billions of wasted bottles and cans with new containers made from virgin materials: in terms of pollution, energy squandered, and habitats disrupted by mining, drilling, and other industrial activities.

In an effort to reverse this wasting trend and make beverage consumption more sustainable, CRI is launching a campaign called 2020 Vision: Setting Our Sights on Zero Beverage Container Waste.

See the CRI Site and follow the links to learn more about beverage container waste in the United States, and about CRI's campaign to achieve Zero Beverage Container Waste--or pretty darn close to zero!

May 11, 2007

There is a lot going on in the carbon markets. I met Ricardo Bayon, author of “Voluntary Carbon Markets”, a few weeks ago and had a good conversation about carbon credits (see Recommended Reading for a link to Ricardo’s book). Bottom line is Not All Carbon Offsets Are Created Equal.

As long as the use of fossil fuels keeps climbing — which is happening relentlessly around the world — the emission of greenhouse gases will keep rising. The average American, by several estimates, generates more than 20 tons of carbon dioxide or related gases a year; the average resident of the planet about 4.5 tons.

At this rate, environmentalists say, buying someone else’s squelched emissions is all but insignificant.

“The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation,” said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. “Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins.”

“This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther,” Mr. Hayes added.

Some environmental campaigners defend this marketplace as a legitimate, if imperfect, way to support an environmental ethic and political movement, even if the numbers don’t all add up…

“Consumers are always going to gravitate toward a more parsimonious solution that requires less behavioral change,” he said. “We know that new products or ideas are more likely to be adopted if they don’t require us to alter our routines very much.”

But he said there was danger ahead, “if we become trained to substitute dollars for deeds — kind of an ‘I gave at the office’ prescription for the environment.”

“There isn’t a single American household above the poverty line that couldn’t cut their CO2 at least 25 percent in six months through a straightforward series of fairly simple and terrifically cost-effective measures,” he said.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The New Yorker won awards for its stories about climate change and Vanity Fair publishes a "green" issue, but just try to find parent company Conde Nast's environmental policy. You can't.

Newsweek ran a cover on "The Greening of America," but its owner, The Washington Post Co., won't identify the magazine's paper suppliers or say where its paper comes from. Maybe The Post's Bob Woodward should investigate.

As for Hearst, which publishes Oprah's magazine and Cosmopolitan, the privately held firm is developing an environmental policy to govern its paper buying. But the company won't provide details.

"Conde Nast," Paglia goes on, "is seemingly unaware of the strangeness of doing a high-profile series in The New Yorker on climate change, while exacerbating the problem by using environmentally irresponsible paper." Conde Nast did not return emails or calls seeking comment.

The reluctance of publishers to talk about their environmental impact suggests that they aren't paying attention - or that they want to avoid it. That makes a project undertaken by a group of paper users - including the Time Inc. division of Time Warner, the German publisher Axel Springer, Random House UK, which is a unit of Bertelsmann, and packaging firm Tetra Pak - all the more unusual.

Those companies are all big customers of Stora Enso, a Finnish-Swedish paper, packaging and forest products giant based in London. With Stora Enso, they formed a partnership to track their supply chain into the heart of Russia's forests to try to insure that it is harvested in a sustainable way.

Ordinarily, I try not to write about Time Inc., which publishes Fortune and CNNMoney.com. This story is an exception because the company's environmental practices deserve recognition.

A very interesting article with some interesting statistics. I did not know that San Francisco led the nation in recycling (68%). Zero waste is just what it sounds like - producing, consuming, and recycling products without throwing anything away. Getting to a wasteless world will require nothing less than a total makeover of the global economy, which thinkers such as entrepreneur Paul Hawken, consultant Amory Lovins, and architect William McDonough have called the Next Industrial Revolution.

And the Norcal Waste Systems operation is fascinating! - Norcal operates a $38 million facility that disaggregates all the recyclables in those blue bins. Conveyor belts, powerful magnets, and giant vacuums separate computer paper from newsprint, plastic jugs from water bottles, and steel and tin cans from aluminum. Materials are then sold to global commodity markets - and we do mean global.

Wastepaper, for example, is the U.S.'s No. 1 export by volume to China, according to PIERS Global Intelligence Solutions, which tracks trade. Ships that bring products from China to the U.S. return with wastepaper, which becomes packaging for goods made in China

A second innovation is the city's handling of food scraps. Another Norcal facility grinds all that up with yard waste and cures it for three months. Banana peels, onion skins, fish heads, and other detritus are thus transformed into a nutrient-rich product dubbed Four Course Compost, which sells for $8 to $10 per cubic yard.

And I am a big believer in using incentives (in this case financial incentives) to get people to change their behavior! - Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city's environment department, says, "The most important thing we do is incentivize people financially to do the right thing and make it more expensive for them to do the wrong thing."

May 09, 2007

Today, there are more than 230 million cars and trucks in the United States, of which maybe 700,000 have some form of electric motor to help drive the wheels. That's one-third of one percent — hardly the makings of an electric-car revolution. On the other hand, whether they focus on hybrids, pure electrics, hydrogen, ethanol, clean diesel or another concept, nearly every carmaker is betting R & D dollars that conventional power¬trains soon will face real competition from more efficient, climate-friendly technologies.

The PHEV's main selling point is big fuel economy, using technology that's almost ready now. While hydrogen, in particular, would demand new infrastructure on a grand scale, plug-ins rely on 110-volt home powerlines and pump gasoline. Tinkerers such as Felix Kramer, founder of PHEV advocacy group California Cars Initiative, already get 100 mpg on 55-mile trips using cobbled-together PHEVs.

Such fuel economy is within reach for anyone with a conventional hybrid, good mechanical skills and around $5000 to spend on parts — Kramer and friends are happy to help with advice and plans…A 2006 study by the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that the United States could meet the electrical needs of 73 percent of its light-duty vehicles with today's grid. This would offset the country's ¬daily oil use by 6.5 million barrels, or nearly one-third.

How about emissions? Generate more juice to power cars, and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants will rise, even as the carbon dioxide pouring out of tailpipes declines. However, it's not an equal tradeoff, because even dirty electricity produced on a grand scale is cleaner than running millions of internal-combustion engines. According to the 2006 DOE study, switching to PHEVs would yield an average net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 27 percent per car. In California, which has the country's cleanest electric-generation system, the figure would be 40 percent.

News from my home state of Michigan, and it is not good news. The water level in Lake Superior approaching a record low set in 1926!

The biggest of the five Great Lakes is getting smaller. The water level in Lake Superior is lower than most people can remember, just above record low levels set 80 years ago.

Experts blame several years of below-normal precipitation for the drop. While low water is an inconvenience for people trying to launch their recreational boats in shallow harbors, it's an expensive problem for the companies that fill thousand-foot long ships with coal and iron ore.

Lake Superior is the uppermost of the five Great Lakes, stretching 350 miles from Duluth to the eastern tip of Upper Michigan. But its down some 18 inches from the base level considered normal. It's a foot lower than it was just a year ago. A month ago, the lake's surface almost broke the record low set in 1926.

That kind of a drop doesn't show much in the lake's deep interior, but it's obvious near the shorelines and in the harbors.

May 07, 2007

My friend Matt. M. recently spent a weekend with the CEO of Pepsi. I was surprised to learn this about Pepsi – and very pleased. I must admit that I prefer Coke, but considering Pepsi’s environmental efforts, I might have to switch!

When the EPA's quarterly list of the 25 greenest energy users is released today, the soft drink and snack food giant will be sitting at the very top.

PepsiCo on Monday will announce that it will purchase 1 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy credits over the next year — equal to all the electricity used by all of PepsiCo's U.S. facilities. That's enough electricity to power 90,000 average American homes for one year.

Each credit represents a subsidy to help produce one megawatt hour of renewable electricity, such as wind power. Producers of renewable energy rely on brokers to sell credits that drive demand for renewables and, thus, reduce emissions that would otherwise have been produced by burning fossil fuels.

PepsiCo's cost: about $2 million. That might not sound like a lot, but in support for renewable energy, it's huge.

"It's a big deal," says Bill Wehrum, the EPA's top federal air pollution official. "They've vaulted to the top of the list."

This is a smart move by P&G. Reducing the size of packaging not only cuts waste but reduces transportation costs (you can fit more bottles of Tide on one truck).

Procter & Gamble Co. announced plans to become more environmentally friendly by reducing the size of its packaging for its liquid detergent, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The company, whose products range from Gillette razors to Pamper diapers, said it will use smaller bottles of double concentrate for its $4 billion North American liquid detergent output, according to the Financial Times.

The move comes as P&G's largest customer Wal-Mart is pushing suppliers to cut packaging by at least 5 percent, the FT reported.

In 2005, P&G's top competitor Unilever launched its higher concentrated liquid detergent "Small and Mighty" in the U.S. Unilever estimates the product reduces packaging by more than 40 percent, water usage by about 60 percent, and shipping volumes by 60 percent, the paper said.